the Function

the Function asks and imagines what is possible when we are empowered to rebuild environments, atmospheres, futures, and realities. With a playground of choreography and objects, four dancers actively create, operate, and destroy their own utopias through genre-bending DIY stage craft; iterative, athletic movement; bass-driven, sonic atmospheres; and house-party energy.

Staged in a runway environment, audiences will be up close to the action and seated on multiple sides of the performance. Using clip lights, extension cords, various kinds of hardware detritus, and an onstage laptop, the dancers perform and run their own show through a messy and wild demonstration of agency and authorship driven by risk and desire. Devised from cross-trainings between director, dancers, DJ, and designers, the Function is a relational, skill-sharing modeling creative mutual aid and the kind of collective effort that proposes a world that is tended in community.

Concept, Direction + Production Design by Erin Kilmurray

Choreography from collaborations with performers

Hannah Santistevan

Keyierra Collins

Kierah KIKI King

Maggie Vannucci

Sound Design by Hannah Viti aka VITIGRRL

Dramaturgy by Dani Wieder

Costume Design by Sal Yvat

Technical Direction + Production Stage Manager by Bran Moorhead

Assistant Direction + Understudy by Sarah Ellen Miller

Movement + Thought Partnership by Deandra Alaba +Tia Monet Greer

the Function premiered at The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, presented at inaugural Chicago Performs program; September 2022

PRESENTATIONS |

Land and Sea Dept; Chicago — May 24 - Jun 14 2024

Philadelphia Fringe Festival — Icebox Project Space - September 2023

Elevate Chicago Dance Festival — October 15, 2022

PREMIERE Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago — September 22, 2022

the Function has been made with support from Chicago Dancemakers’ Forum’s Lab Artist Award, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago’s Chicago Performs festival, as well as creative residency at The Harris Theater for Music and Dance, The Field Center for Performance, Dance and Interdisciplinary Arts (VT), Ragdale Foundation (IL), and Vashon Artist Residency (WA).